100,000 PSXs Sold In First Week

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By Andrew Burnes

Sony Executive Deputy President, Ken Kutaragi, has told Reuters that the PSX sold 100,000 units in the first week of sale, and has subsequently sold out:

Sony is banking on 2004 being a better year than 2003, which was marred by the "Sony shock" -- a $1 billion quarterly loss announced in April -- and restructuring announced in October that calls for a 13 percent cut in its global work force in the next three years.

It hopes to improve its fortunes by rolling out cutting-edge products, such as PSX, an entertainment system that includes a hard disk drive (HDD) and DVD recorder plus a PS2 game machine,

Sony Executive Deputy President Ken Kutaragi, who built the PlayStation into the world's dominant game machine, told Reuters that the PSX is selling out in stores.

"We sold 100,000 PSXs in the first week. It sells for almost 100,000 yen ($941) and it still sold out. There are no products out there that can say that," said Kutaragi.

The machine, powered by the same microprocessor at the heart of the PS2 console, went on sale on December 13 in Japan amid a flurry of media attention.

Kutaragi, also responsible for the company's strategy at its games and electronics divisions, said Sony grabbed the top market share for DVD recorders with hard disk drives in December at 35 percent, overtaking leader Matsushita Electric Industrial.

"This is probably the impact of the new products," said a spokesman from Matsushita, adding that Matsushita's share was around the same as Sony's 35 percent.

"For the full year, we expect that things will even out and we will still come out on top."